Napoleon's Gold Leaf Hits €625,000

A golden laurel leaf cut from the crown Napoleon Bonaparte wore to his coronation as French Emperor has been sold for €625,000 (£550,000), around six times more than the auctioneers had predicted.

The leaf, which went to a foreign buyer whose identity was not revealed, was one of six removed from the crown before the event in 1804 because Napoleon had complained that the headset was too heavy.

The small 10g decoration, worth only a few hundred euros if melted down for its metal, was among some 400 works linked to the emperor that were sold on Sunday by auction house Osenat at Fontainebleau, near Paris.